Jill enters the Ecuadorian embassy in London with a crass smirk on her face. She grinds through the usual bureaucracy, but she’s cleared as Julian is expecting her. She makes her way toward his room, as she sees a man stumbling away, face buried in his hands, crying. She is intrigued, she watches him momentarily, but does not engage him. She enters Julian’s room.

“Good to see you, Jill.” He’s still standing by the window.

“Tell me, you crazy bastard, was that Edward Snowden sobbing out in the hallway?”

Julian sighs in annoyance, “Need you be so nosy?”

“You have to be the biggest hypocrite in the world, asking me that question right now.” She laughs.

Julian chuckles, slightly. He appreciates having someone more rigid around to talk to. It is lonely here. Jill isn’t someone he can exploit. Her narcissism and aggression make her competitive; he sees her as an equal. She is someone he can have a real conversation with. He turns to face her, “You know, Jill, I really wish I could have attended the convention in person. I rather missed talking to you.”

She approaches him, puts her arms around his neck, and presses her forehead against his, “Oh, I’m sure you have many awful stories about spies, aspiring hackers and people whose lives you are actively ruining to entertain me with, darling.”

He’s slightly put off, “Jill… are you coming on to me?”

She giggles and releases him, “No, sweetheart. I know I’m much too old for you. How old were those two girls you fucked in Sweden, again?”

He is becoming frustrated, “Must you bring that up?”

“What? The great Julian Assange that I just praised as a hero, accused of ‘molestation’, you’ve denied it to the courts, are you denying it to me? You know you can talk to me.”

Julian groans and takes a seat at the edge of the bed. He is thoroughly annoyed now.

“Okay, humor me here. What did you give them? I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. Both of those girls tried to court order an STD test before they pushed rape and molestation charges. I’m willing to consider that they’re just coming after you with a grudge. What did you give them?”

“Jill, can you fucking drop it?”

“Oh come on, I’m a doctor. You can talk to me about these things.”

“I don’t want to talk about fucking Sweden!” He’s about had enough of this.

Jill giggles again, “Fine, sugar.” She sits next to him on the edge of the bed. “Let’s just get high and catch up.”

“What did you have in mind?” As much as she has perturbed him, he does need a friend.

Jill pulls out a bag of mysterious, unmarked tablets. “Some white guy with dreadlocks at the convention gave me these. They’re pretty fun.”

“What are they?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Julian rolls his eyes, “I’m not taking anything if I don’t know what it is.”

“Julian, once again, I’m a doctor. Would I tell you to take anything if I didn’t think you could handle it?”

He stares into her eyes intently, making his suspicion as obvious as possible.

“Dr. Stein is telling you to take your medicine, Julian.” She pops one tablet herself, offers him one. Julian reluctantly takes the drug after seeing Jill was willing to take it. “That’s good, sweetie. We’ll both be feeling much better in no time.”

Julian lays back, hands behind his head. He’s trying to let go of the tension from earlier. He had just ended things with Edward rather aggressively and is still a bit riled up. He tries to focus on other topics to clear his mind. “So, you’re the party nominee, now?”

“Oh yeah, that was easy. There was this adorable ‘Cherney or bust’ movement among a few clowns. I had 67% of the vote. I don’t know what planet they’re living on. If you’re going to elect a spoiler, elect the most mainstream one, not some pipe bomb surviving hippie.” She giggles again, pauses briefly before moving on, “I’ve been seeing Donald, you know.”

Julian is slightly disgusted, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“You’ve focused all of your efforts on tearing down Hillary Clinton this election, and you have no real business with America. Why are you acting all high and mighty?”

Jill laughs loudly, lays down next to Julian, staring toward the ceiling. “He isn’t particularly good, but it is pretty amusing. The man is completely oblivious to the intentions of everyone around him. I’m just trying to get high enough in the polls so my party can rake in money next term. Meanwhile, I come to him like I’m doing him a favor by spoiling for Clinton. I offer to ramp up the rhetoric as long as he cuts me a piece of the power if he wins.”

Julian is confused, “Just what kind of ‘power’ do you think you’re going to wrestle from that disaster?”

“Are you kidding me? He’s outright said he doesn’t want to govern. He has no idea what he’s doing. Ninety percent of his presidency will be Mike Pence with his hand up his ass making him talk. I’ll find a way to extort money from him, periodically build other high level connections through him, and I certainly have some old friends in Massachusetts I’d really like to settle some scores with.”

“You always were a vindictive bitch.” Julian pauses for a moment after saying that, then they both explode into laughter.

“At least you haven’t been on the receiving end of it, love.”

Julian begins to feel funny. “Ugh, what ride am I in for with this shit?”

“Oh, we’re about to lose our fucking minds. Buckle up.”

“…….Great.” Julian tries to keep calm, knowing this could fall apart if he doesn’t. His eyes get heavy, things begin to change, Jill just keeps giggling.

Julian is looking down a cobblestone path. Everything around it is too black to see, and he can only see about 50 yards forward. What is this place? He hears crying in the distance. He begins walking forward. A young Swedish woman approaches him, he vaguely recognizes her. Both of her eyes are blackened, she is sobbing. “What did you do to me?!”

“I-I don’t understand….” Why is this woman so familiar?

Her face explodes into static. A deafening wall of noise hits him. Her face reassembles, she cries, “Why did you do this to me?!”

“I don’t know what I did!” He is beginning to breathe heavy. He starts walking backward away from her. She slowly pursues, and he sees another figure emerge from the distance. He feels as if he knows this woman, too.

“What did you do to me?!” The second woman asks. Her lips and nose are bleeding. Her face explodes into static. The deafening sound echoes through this dark corridor.

“I don’t know!” Julian is terrified. Why can’t he remember? What do these women want? He feels a cutting sensation at the top of his stomach, as if someone is sliding a knife into him. He falls to his knees in agony. “What can I do?! What do you want from me?!”

The two women begin to float above ground, both of their heads explode into static, the deafening sound continues. Julian gets up and begins running in the opposite direction. As he begins to get away from the deafening sound, he sees Edward, standing naked, his face in his hands, crying.

“Why… why did you have to be so cruel?”

Julian is overwhelmed with a sense of contempt he doesn’t fully understand. He shouts at Edward, “Why did you have to be so weak?!” Julian is having a hard time breathing. The adrenaline rush is taking its toll on him. His exile to his room at the embassy has been degrading his body. He falls down again, grabbing at his stomach, as the cutting sensation moves lower, he begins gagging.

“I thought you loved me…” Edward stands over Julian, his anguish is unbearable.

Trying to end the pain, Julian crawls over the cobblestone road into the darkness and begins falling into black empty space. It feels as if he’s falling for hours. The fall begins to slow as he seems to gracefully descend into what appears to be an ancient prison cell. What is this place? Why is he here? He turns around and sees Guy Fawkes standing before him.“Remember…”

“No… no this isn’t happening. You shouldn’t even be their idol…”

“The fifth of November…”

“No! Get away from me!” Julian has never been so terrified in his life. He falls to his knees as the cutting sensation moves lower.

Guy Fawkes starts to grow taller and taller, the room extends upward to accommodate his stature.

“The gunpowder treason…” Blood starts pouring from his eyes and mouth, then it begins gushing from every opening in his clothes. The cell starts to fill with blood. Julian is becoming submerged in it.

“No! This can’t be real!” The cutting sensation moves lower.

Julian’s eyes begin to open. His vision is blurry and he is trying to get a grasp on where he is. He is in incredible pain. He tries to move his hand to hold his stomach, but something is restraining it. He hears moaning. As his vision clears, he looks down and sees Jill, perched over his naked body, her eyes dilated from the drug, her hands soaked in his blood, holding a scalpel. He cries out in terror and is quickly silenced by her hands over his mouth.

“Hush, sweetheart. We aren’t done.”

Julian bites down on Jill’s palm. She moans slightly. The drug enhances the pleasure for her.

She begins to snicker. “Hold on, I’ll help you.” She takes Julian’s boxers and shoves them deep into his mouth. He tries to push them out with his tongue, but he hardly has room to move it. “Just be still. Just be still for me. I’m a doctor, I know what I’m doing. I washed my hands.”

Tears begin streaming from Julian’s face. His hands and feet are restrained. She has made an incision into his abdomen roughly 4” long. She has been sliding her fingers in and out of it. He thought they were friends. How could she do this to him?

“You know, it’s hard to understand what it’s like to be a man, to be… inside of another person. It truly is the most intimate feeling. It’s funny how some men can enter into another person with such apathy. I feel as if I’m reaching into your soul.” She slides her hand further in, placing Julian’s entrails in between her fingers, she quivers, he tries to scream, but can’t. “Did you feel it, when you were in those Swedish girls? Did you feel the pain from inside of them, like I feel the pain inside of you? It is an incredible feeling to be inside of someone, to feel their suffering from the inside. Have you longed for that here? This is so incredible, I feel as if I am going to long for it for a long time after I leave.”

Julian’s back arches up, all of his muscles become tense. Jill begins moving her hand in and out of him as if she were making love to his stomach. His heart may not be able to take much more of this. The true soul of a narcissist, he still does not understand empathy; this transgression is new, he relates it to nothing, it is his suffering alone.

Jill comes from the excitement, slowly removes her hand from Julian’s abdomen. She lays down next to him as the orgasm runs its course, then smears her face with his blood. She catches her breath. “Oh my god, that was amazing.”

She sits up slowly, grabs the needle and thread she brought, and begins to suture Julian’s stomach shut. He wants to cry out with each penetration of the needle, but he still cannot get his underwear out of his mouth. She finishes and begins kissing the dressing of the wound. “Isn’t that better?” She slides up, rests her head on his shoulder, and gently cuddles him, making sure to not put any pressure on the regions she tormented. “You’re going to be fine, my friend. I really did miss you. I should visit you more often.”